


What Doesn't Quite Kill You (Only Makes You Less Human)

by QueenWuppy



Series: Pain [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, It's more graphic depictions of pain than graphic depictions of violence, It's not particularly pleasant, Surgery, Surgery without anasthetic, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:05:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8399314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWuppy/pseuds/QueenWuppy
Summary: Just another day, waking up to everything.(except for, you know, that fact he doesn't know the time, and so can't tell if it's another day yet or not, and also that he's not really waking up so much as that he's no longer too dead to be unaware. It's not better)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is unfinished, and is meant as the start of a novel length piece. Except I can't remember where it was going, sooo. Anyway, if I do, in fact, remember, I will update this. probably. hopefully.
> 
> It doesn't actually reference anyone by name, but I feel if you kinda know that Tony woke up with his heart working because a magnet is keeping shrapnel out of his heart, then you can probably tell who it is. The fact I've tagged him probably also helps.

He feels like he's going to fall asleep. _Blood loss,_ his brain says. He can't feel anything except his upper chest, which currently feels like it's been shredded. Like his nerves have been flayed. He can't tell if the reason he can't feel his fingers is because he's feeling too much in his chest. The pain is keeping him awake. It's what woke him in the first place.

He screams. He doesn't stop.

 

 

 

 

He can feel movement on his chest – in it, almost – and a sawing motion. It aches, on top of everything else. It's beyond burning, to that point it feels freezing. He wishes he'd pass out. His lungs move with the screams he distantly hears. They barely burn with it. His throat he can feel. It's dry. He can't remember when he last drank water. Before the pain.

His stomach aches as well, now that he thinks. He last ate before the pain. He supposes that’s a thing now, before the pain. Like people say about defining events (" _Before I was married…_ " with that sly smirk; " _Before I met her…_ ").

 _Before the pain, I was human_. He can’t be human. Humans break down, eventually. With enough ( _pain_ ).

 

 

 

 

 _I wish,_ he thinks, _I wish_. He dreams, awake, that he once couldn't feel pain. It seems almost odd. Like something impossible (" _I can do the impossible,_ " a faint memory, " _see, look, father!_ "), like the pain has always been. Like there was never anything else.

 

He knows he isn't thinking clearly. It's just – _pain_. Burning, through is veins. Freezing, down his throat, in his lungs. Hollowness in his stomach. Pressure, in his chest. A static-y sort of rhythm in his heart that isn't quite his heartbeat, it's out of time and it just hurts. Aches everywhere else, and what feels like a knife pounding through his skull ( _It's just a migraine, of all the things, a psychological pain not a physical one_ ). It's all-consuming. Pain is what he knows, it's everything he knows, and he knows it well.

 

(There is a man, somewhere, laughing. He has brown eyes, and he knows everything. He's looking for someone he lost. He did not care for you, and now you are not there, he can focus his search better.)

 

(He can't tell if he hates this man, or loves him. Perhaps, it is both.)

 

 

 

 

He is still screaming, when he has breath. It keeps getting taken from him, either by his screams or a damp rag pressed to his face. It tastes like dirt and sand and a bitter metal. It's smearing whatever is on it across his face, but it is blessedly cool against it. He can feel his flushed cheeks, and while that is the least of his pains, it is being soothed.

 

(His chest still screeches, and his throat is still raw. He'll never stop feeling this.)

 

 

 

 

There are noises aside from screams. It's kinda funny, now he thinks about it, that he couldn't hear this earlier. He doesn't know if it was because the screams were too loud, or if the noises were quieter. He can't comprehend what they mean, anyway, so it is not like it matters.

 

("…kerscreeeech – yes, there – ssssssss – cauterizssssssktch – shrapnel…")

 

The movement jostling his chest stopped a while ago. It hasn't stopped the pain. It hurts. It might even hurt less than it did a while ago. This is bemusing. It is unexpected. Pain is his existence. But sleep – oh, what strange concept, he longs for it even have (briefly) forgotten it. It is all he wants.

 

(Water would not go amiss.)

 

(Food neither.)

 

 

 

 

The idea that he must have come from somewhere sparks into his mind at some point. If he exists, then it stands to reason that he must have started existing. (" _I think, therefore I am,_ " rests within his thoughts. He has no idea where it comes from, or why it is there, but it fits.)

 

He can think, too, which is the next great revelation. If not clearly, then just enough to question. He takes an unsteady breath. It hurts, oh, every single moment of the breath hurts so immensely that he can hardly comprehend. It feels like he can breathe, though. And that, suddenly, is beyond him. He screams.

 

(He can hardly believe he stopped.)


End file.
